Is this holiday entitlement illegal?

RichardD1970

Forget bank holidays as being anything seperate or special.

I've had plenty of jobs where every holiday day is dictated to me and I've had no flexibility at all.

nicechap

Stu6781 wrote: »

Hi all

I get 28 days holiday allowance (I work full time, 5 days a week mon-fri). This includes the 8 bank holidays, which I know is normal, bringing it down to 20 days. BUT they also take out 3 days between Xmas and new year which the firm shut for regardless (like the majority of companies do) leaving us with just 17 days actual annual leave. Is thies legal?

Stu6781 wrote: »

Okay, can I just get some clarification from yourself and others that 17 days actual holiday is embarrassingly low? And that I’ve never heard of a company offering this? Most of my friends get around 22-25 days without bank holidays/Xmas break or whatever BS it might be.

Stu6781 wrote: »

As far as I look at it I get 17 days of chosen holiday days. No one I know gets below 22 days of CHOSEN days. Forget about Xmas break and bank holidays.

Quite legal. Unfair, maybe (see quote from Shortcrust in my signature).

Have you thought about asking your union to challenge the leave arrangements and would you support collective action to achieve it?

jackieblack

getmore4less wrote: »

Which can be Zero if the contract allows for it.

Clauses like "holidays need to be approved" override the statutory notice for holidays for requesting holiday.

That’s about approving a request to take leave from the employee.

All employers are legally entitled to tell you when to take your holiday days, but they have to give you twice the period of notice as the number of days that they are telling you to take. So, for example, if they are telling you that you have to take two days of your holiday entitlement on certain days they would need to tell you this four days in advance, for a week’s holiday they would need to give you two weeks notice, etc.

https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/booking-time-off-

[Deleted User]

If you want to choose. Ask them to put the 3 days at Christmas as unpaid and you take the 3 days when you like as this seems to be what you want. Granted you would be 3 days of less pay but if that’s how you want it go ahead.

You get the legal amount there is nothing you can do as you don’t fall below the legal amount.

If you prefer go find a job that gives you more holidays.

I’d rather have a job I liked and enjoyed instead of concentrating on the holiday allowance.

Meepster

I get 28 days, which includes 8 bank holidays and 5 days over Christmas and New Year, which means I only have 15 days which I can book over the rest of the year. I don't have any issues with this at all and it works quite well!

BoGoF

They could shut down in the summer for 2 weeks and that would be 19 days holiday gone. All perfectly legal.

getmore4less

jackieblack wrote: »

That’s about approving a request to take leave from the employee.

All employers are legally entitled to tell you when to take your holiday days, but they have to give you twice the period of notice as the number of days that they are telling you to take. So, for example, if they are telling you that you have to take two days of your holiday entitlement on certain days they would need to tell you this four days in advance, for a week’s holiday they would need to give you two weeks notice, etc.

https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/booking-time-off-

I just gave one example of a clause that overrides the default notice.

They can have other clause that remove the statutory notice requirements to take holidays.

That notice can be down to zero ie. you are taking next week as holiday.

The .gov page linked is not complete as it ignore that contracts can override the notice.

RichardD1970

BoGoF wrote: »

They could shut down in the summer for 2 weeks and that would be 19 days holiday gone. All perfectly legal.

Blimey, your weeks are long, glad I don't work there.

Comms69

Stu6781 wrote: »

Okay, can I just get some clarification from yourself and others that 17 days actual holiday is embarrassingly low? And that I’ve never heard of a company offering this? Most of my friends get around 22-25 days without bank holidays/Xmas break or whatever BS it might be.

No. Your employer can tell you to take every Wednesday off until your entitlement is used up if they so wanted.

getmore4less

jackieblack wrote: »

That only applies to employees requesting taking leave.
Not to employers dictating when an employee has to take leave.

The statutory notice for the employer instructing employees to take holiday can be overridden in the contract

That is what the relevant law says.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/regulation/15/made